Central Alberta Amateur Radio Club
The 49th Annual Red Deer Amateur Radio Picnic and Hamfest
May 26th
The 49th Annual Red Deer Amateur Radio Picnic and Hamfest (click link below for details)
http://www.caarc.ca/40th-annual-red-deer-picnic-and-hamfest
will be held on June 14, 15, and 16 , 2019.
CAARC Participation in ARRL Field Day 2019
Jun 10th
Our Field Day will be held at the farm of Ray, VE6RSO, at 36279 Range Road 285 southwest of Penhold. From the intersection of the C&E Trail and Township Road 364, go west nearly 2 miles. Watch for where the main gravel road turns south to become Range Road 285. Follow this road south about 1 mile until you see the 36279 sign on the east side. Or put 52.100611, -113.980417 into your navigation system. When you get there follow the Field Day signs. Note: My Google Maps does not locate 36279 Range Road 285 correctly.
I want everyone who comes to this event to leave it with no new injuries or conditions. We will have a designated Safety Officer during all times that we are working to set up for Field Day, making Field Day QSOs and messages, and tearing down and tidying up the site. He will help us to remember to do things in such a way that we and the property we are using are kept safe. And if we, as amateurs, ever join an ICS effort, the Safety Officer function is always included as part of the Command group, although it may be one of many hats that one person wears when crews are small. The Safety Officer in Charge will have the power to stop activities that he deems unsafe. This power will be enforced!
We are working toward setting up 3 HF stations and 1 VHF/UHF station.
Our schedule will be (These times are Local):
13:00 hours Friday June 21 – Set up
18:00 hours Friday June 21 – ARRL Field Day Bulletins start
09:00 hours Saturday June 22 – Final set up and testing, capture Field Day bulletin if not already done.
11:00 hours Saturday June 22 – Pre-operations break – bring your own lunch, coffee provided
12:00 hours Saturday June 22 – Target for Field Day Operations to start. Note: We have outstanding invitations to outside groups, so it would be good to keep our radios working
17:30 hours Saturday June 22 – Field Day supper, donations gladly accepted, thanks to Ray for the hog roast – can we rotate operators to keep the radios working?
07:00 hours Sunday June 23 – bacon and egg breakfast, donations gladly accepted – can we rotate operators to keep the radios working?
09:00 hours Sunday June 23 – On-air operations continue. Note: We have outstanding invitations to outside groups so it would be good to keep our radios working
24 hours after start of on-air operations – shut down
Then tallying of score and tear down and clean up. Note – tear down can overlap with on-air operations for any item that is no longer useful, such as an 80-meter dipole after mid-morning.
Come on over! It would help me if I knew what times you could be there, please advise me of your intended hours if you can at va6sja@rac.ca or at my 306-321-4457 cellular phone. But you are still welcome if you can’t predict your hours. And please advise me of the meals you will attend so we can buy the right amount.
John, VA6SJA, CAARC Field Day Chairman
Map to Field Day Location
Click the blue link below to get directions to CAARC Field Day location. Then choose your starting location at the flashing curser in the upper left corner to get driving directions
CAARC Participation in ARRL Field Day 2019 – Organization Meeting
May 17th
There will be a meeting to organize for Field Day. We will be meeting at the Village Mall A&W in Red Deer at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday May 21.
Remember that Field Day is June 22 and 23. You can operate from your home station, from your vehicle, away from home by yourself or with a friend, or with us. We’ll hear you on the air!
We have found a treed hilltop location a little southwest of Penhold.
At Tuesday’s meeting we will talk about organizing for the field day, setting up, finding items needed and configuring them. And we will talk about how the on-air operations will proceed.
John, VA6SJA/va6sja@rac.ca/587-272-2699
2019 Red Deer Picnic and Hamfest Volunteers Needed
Apr 20th
The Red Deer Picnic and Hamfest is fast approaching. We need lots of club members to help out with various tasks before and during the weekend
Simply click this link to go to the form and click submit at the bottom.
Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, SK
Apr 16th
Amateur Radio in Space Pioneer Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, SK
04/15/2019
The US astronaut who pioneered the use of Amateur Radio to make contacts from space — Owen K. Garriott, W5LFL — died April 15 at his home in Huntsville, Alabama. He was 88. Garriott’s ham radio activity ushered in the formal establishment of Amateur Radio in space, first as SAREX — the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, and later as ARISS — Amateur Radio on the International Space Station.
“Owen Garriott was a good friend and an incredible astronaut,” fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin tweeted. “I have a great sadness as I learn of his passing today. Godspeed Owen.”
An Oklahoma native, Garriott — an electrical engineer — spent 2 months aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 during a 1983 Space Shuttle Columbia mission. It was during the latter mission that Garriott thrilled radio amateurs around the world by making the first contacts from space. Thousands of hams listened on 2-meter FM, hoping to hear him or to make a contact. Garriott ended up working stations around the globe, among them such notables as the late King Hussein, JY1, of Jordan, and the late US Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA. He also made the first CW contact from space. Garriott called hamming from space “a pleasant pastime.”
“I managed to do it in my off-duty hours, and it was a pleasure to get involved in it and to talk with people who are as interested in space as the 100,000 hams on the ground seemed to be,” he said in an interview published in the February 1984 edition of QST. “So, it was just a pleasant experience, the hamming in particular, all the way around.”
Although Garriott had planned to operate on ham radio during his 10 days in space, no special provisions were made on board the spacecraft in terms of equipment — unlike the situation today on the International Space Station. Garriott simply used a hand-held transceiver with its antenna in the window of Spacelab-1. His first pass was down the US West Coast.
“[A]s I approached the US, I began to hear stations that were trying to reach me,” he told QST. “On my very first CQ, there were plenty of stations responding.” His first contact was with Lance Collister, WA1JXN, in Montana.
ARISS ARRL Representative Rosalie White, K1STO, met Garriott when he attended Hamvention, “both times, sitting next to him at Hamvention dinner banquets,” she recounted. “Once when he was a Special Achievement Award winner, and once with him and [his son] Richard when Richard won the 2009 Special Achievement Award. Owen was unassuming, very smart, kind, and up to date on the latest technology.” Garriott shared a Hamvention Special Achievement Award in 2002 with fellow Amateur Radio astronaut Tony England, W0ORE.
Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, was a private space traveler to the ISS, flown there by the Russian Federal Space Agency, and he also carried ham radio into space.
CAARC Participation in ARRL Field Day 2019
Feb 28th
Hi… I’m John Allen, VA6SJA, and I get excited about Field Day.
The 2019 ARRL Field Day is scheduled for June 22 and 23. I know, that is the next weekend after our picnic.
This year we are hoping to have 2 Field Day operations, one Class F Field Day at the Red Deer County Office sponsored by Red Deer and Area ARES for a few hours, and a Class A (emergency powered) Field Day sponsored by CAARC somewhere in the Red Deer area for all or most of the designated 24-hour operating period. Hams can work at both field days if they wish, but if they make contacts between the two stations those contacts may not count in either official score. Participation at the Red Deer County Office will be by invitation only because of its security requirements.
For a flavour of Field Day, watch this video report of the Westcoast Radio Association’s Field Day effort in 2010. These people participated from the picnic ground in HERITAGE ACRES in Saanichton, a museum park of the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society on Vancouver Island. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPN1ELCtzsQ .
Although they start setup on Saturday morning, the rules allow starting setup on Thursday evening if it works better tor the participating club. Field Day hours participation takes place during the same hours across the United States and Canada, so they can start participating at 11:00 a.m. their local time, while the operating event starts at noon local time here. And our effort does not have to include so many transmitters operating at once.
Help make this happen here! Identify yourself to me at telephone 587-272-2699 (leave a message if I don’t answer) or via email at va6sja@rac.ca.
There are more ways to score official points during Field Day than were mentioned in the video. As we build up our Field Day crew we will explore them.
Field Day can also be a social occasion. I have been at Field Days where the sponsoring club provided Saturday Lunch and Sunday Breakfast to participants. In many cases the Saturday evening meal has been a barbeque or pot luck for the participants, club members and their families.
There may be official ARRL Field Day T-shirts and pins.
Act now! If you want to help make this happen and think you will be available, call me at 587-272-2699 or email me at va6sja@rac.ca .
73
John
Update: I have already received replies from a few hams who wish to participate. I am hoping that will tell me you are coming too.
2019 Fathers Day Picnic raffle tickets
Dec 12th
The 2019 Fathers Day Picnic raffle tickets will be available at the January general meeting. I am making sure to have proper front covers this time.
VE6xy
President CAARC
New Amateur Radio Packet Gear Awaits Unpacking, Installation on Space Station
Dec 10th
New Amateur Radio Packet Gear Awaits Unpacking, Installation on Space Station
12/18/2018New Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) packet equipment awaits unpacking and installation on board the station after arriving in November as part of the cargo transported via a Russian 71P Progress resupply vehicle. The new packet module for NA1SS will replace the current packet gear, which has been intermittent over the past year.
“With the arrival of Progress complete, the crew has to find free time unpack Progress, uninstall the intermittent module, and then set up and test the replacement packet module,” explained Dan Barstow, KA1ARD, senior education manager of the ISS National Laboratory (CASIS), an ARISS sponsor.
The ISS packet system was reported to have gone down in July 2017, although it unexpectedly came back to life the following summer. At the time of the failure, NASA ISS Ham Radio Project Engineer Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO, said the revived system would fill the gap until the replacement packet module was launched and installed. The packet system operates on 145.825 MHz. ARISS hardware team members on the ground were able to locate a functional duplicate of the ISS packet module that has been in use on the ISS for 17 years. ARISS said the subsequent installation will depend on the crew’s busy schedule.
In an email to ARISS and other groups CASIS supports, Barstow pointed out that ARISS is an official back-up system for astronauts to talk with Mission Control in the unlikely failure of the station’s primary communication systems.
Bartow said that in 2017, hams relayed nearly 89,000 packet messages via the ISS — an average of 243 every day. The statistic so intrigued and amazed Barstow that he decided to get his Amateur Radio license and gear to join in the activity.
Satellite stalwart and ARISS supporter Patrick Stoddard, WD9EWK, won the December 2018 QST Cover Plaque Award for his article, “Making Digital Contacts through the ISS.”
Current International Space Station (ISS) crew members Serena Auñón-Chancellor, KG5TMT, Alexander Gerst, KF5ONO, and cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev are scheduled to return to Earth on December 20 on a Soyuz vehicle.
SSO-A mission with Amateur Radio satellites launched December 3
Dec 5th
From AMSAT.UK
Spaceflight’s SSO-A SmallSat Express mission, carrying many amateur radio satellites, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 18:34 GMT on Monday, December 3.
Watch the launch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq8kS6UoOrQ
ESEO 437.000 MHz beacon received by Surrey Space Centre
64 small satellites from 17 countries were launched on this mission, some with amateur radio payloads. A full list of satellites, can be found at
https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/content/-/article/sso-a
Four microsatellites including ESEO, carrying an AMSAT-UK FUNcube-4 transponder, were deployed about 2 hours and 13 minutes after launch.
60 CubeSats including Jordan’s JY1SAT carrying a FUNcube-6 transponder and capable of transmitting Slow Scan Digital Video (SSDV) images deployed about 2 hours later.
